


Hangman

by unrivaled_tapestry



Series: Strangler [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adopted Children, Anxiety Attacks, Anxiety Disorder, Existential Crisis, Ferdibert is Married, Guilt, Intrusive Thoughts, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mid-life Crisis, Multi, Past Attempted Murder, Violent Thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-01
Updated: 2021-03-01
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:33:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29754807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unrivaled_tapestry/pseuds/unrivaled_tapestry
Summary: Twenty years ago, Hubert nearly murdered Ferdinand during one moonlit night at Garreg Mach.At forty, married, and caring for children, it shouldn't matter. But every secret has a price for carrying it, and Hubert realizes that he can bear this one no longer.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/My Unit | Byleth, Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra
Series: Strangler [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2186874
Comments: 10
Kudos: 117





	Hangman

**Author's Note:**

> Look, sometimes you write a 3.7k fic and then over a year later you write a longfic sequel following up on the premise when Hubert is forty and has been aggressively repressing what happened for 20 years.
> 
> This is a sequel to "Garroter." If you have not read that one you should go ahead and read it first! (It's a lot shorter)
> 
> I know I've been talking about this one for a long time. I first started brainstorming it with Goop (aka Golden_Threads) in about March of 2020, and then started writing it that August. I've been chipping away at it since then, and anyone who talks to me regularly knows that this fic was unusually hard to work on (and has probably heard me scream about it daily for the last couple weeks).
> 
> Major thanks to Goop for giving me an emotional arc for this that has stayed fairly intact since our early conversations (and who gave me a good chunk of the dialogue models for the last two scenes). Thanks to both Goop and Nuanta for being amazing betas and continuing to brainstorm and spitball ideas with me (and call me out when I try to end a fic one scene early). Thank you also to Ink for helping me name this one because it was just "Garroter Sequel" for months and months, and anyone else who helped or offered encouragement or support.
> 
> Thank you also to everyone who commented on "Garroter" or who drew art for it (looking at you, Beans!) I wasn't sure how a darker fic would be received back then, and the reception I got was amazing. This sequel has been a long time in the making.
> 
> WARNINGS:  
> \- Past attempted murder  
> \- Extreme guilt  
> \- Violent intrusive thoughts  
> \- What I can really only describe as a nervous breakdown  
> \- Including fairly detailed physical descriptions of anxiety  
> \- Someone's partner not knowing how to handle their mental health crisis  
> \- One character is thrown into the deep end wrt their worst fear. This is done with the best of intentions, but it may be upsetting for some folks.  
> \- This fic should be seen as a glimpse into a relationship between two flawed people who love each other about fifteen years down the way, and not as any kind of therapeutic or psychological guide. Again, this is a fic about people responding to an adverse event as well as they possibly can.  
> \- While it was never my intention for Hubert to come across as suicidal in this, that is a fear that Ferdinand has that is implied at some points, and Hubert's behavior is overall self-destructive enough that it may have some similarities to suicidal ideation.

If asked, Hubert could not be sure when exactly he broke. He was barely aware when it happened, save for the sensation of claws raking down the insides of his ribs, playing them like singing bones and clasping around his heart like it was their prize. Surely he’d been doing something mundane and domestic, like getting the children ready for bed, or making them lunch, because that’s when the feeling started—a barely conscious dread that lurked around his thoughts, the idea that something was wrong, that something bad was coming, and he did not know why he had that feeling or what fleeting thought inspired it.

Or maybe he did know.

Retreating to his home office shortly after returning to the townhouse often earned him a disapproving look from his husband, but sometimes the occasion called for it, and since they adopted the children, staying at his rooms in the palace no longer held the practicality that it used to. So, Hubert decided to journey back and worked through dinner for the chance to sleep in his own bed. The modified silence sigils he’d carved into the walls muffled the sound of Ferdinand herding three young children as Hubert poured over accounts filled with discrepancies. He kept things balanced now, and rarely needed to poison anyone to do it, though he couldn’t promise mercy to the man who’d mucked up tracking for the Hresvelg emergency fund quite so badly.

It struck him as strange, the metal of his pen glinting like the end of a short dirk. The tip was doused in ink like a dart treated with rare venom. It made him hungry for something, made his fingers itch.

Afterwards, he stalked the hallways of his home as he always did. Checking his wards at the doors and windows. He followed this path until the tightness in the center of his forehead eased, and the knots in his shoulders started to loosen.

As he approached their youngest’s room, he saw a faint light still breaching the open door, and heard the comforting timbre of Ferdinand’s voice. He’d always been clear, if loud, but the children sometimes needed quiet, and Ferdinand had learned to give it to them.

Hubert normally would have gone in, but an old habit kept him lurking in the shadows ridging the ray of light cast by Ferdinand’s lantern.

“Papa’s been around a lot.” Lysette spoke into her doll. “Is he going to go away again soon?”

“He may. Even I do not always know.” Ferdinand’s hand darted out to brush back Lysette’s hair, as his other hand moved to pull her woolen blanket up around her shoulders.

“Why does he have to go away so much?” Lysette pulled her plush horse closer to her face, buried her cheek in its mane.

“He has to go because he loves us.” Ferdinand’s voice sounded far away. “Your papa keeps us safe.”

Somewhere, inside his mind and yet as crisp as a false sound on the edge of sleep, Hubert heard the twanging of a steel cord.

On a normal night, Hubert would have waited for Feridnand to kiss Lysette on the forehead to keep bad dreams away, before patting down her blankets and taking his lantern, leaving her to sleep. Hubert would stay in place until Ferdinand emerged and cast light on him, and they’d retire to their bed. It was a far cry from the easy indulgence of the early days of their marriage, or the sharp bite of their wartime romance, but it was a familiar, low note. One Hubert couldn’t bear to play tonight.

Before Lysette’s bed even creaked with the sound of Ferdinand rising to his own popping bones, Hubert was already down the hall. Hubert moved as fast as he could, and habit kept his boots nimbly avoiding every creaky floorboard in the townhouse they had shared for a decade.

Hubert couldn’t identify the tightening around his ribs, though he pulled at his collar and pressed his back to the wall, smothering the heat in his chest with hasty breaths that he took in as quickly and quietly as possible, though none seemed to satisfy his lungs. In another era, he’d have thought he’d been poisoned, so sudden was the change and so overwhelming the sensation. He was at the age where he was more likely to be killed by a sudden ailment of his heart than one of his numerous former enemies, and the rigidity under his trachea made him wonder if that might be it.

He made his way to their washroom, his fingers mechanically forming the sigil for light onto the mirror, because the thought of fumbling around for his own lantern was too much.

Hubert was no less gaunt than he had been as a younger man. Habit and distaste for his own maintenance seemed to have robbed from him the security of healthy weight Ferdinand developed shortly after the war. Sometime around the middle of Hubert’s third decade, he’d finally managed to grow a short, crisp beard, and the addendum remained rigidly trimmed. He saw that face in the mirror, of course, and he knew who it was, though for a panicked moment, he hardly recognized it as himself.

The basin was already filled with fresh water, and he splashed it on his face. His palms lingered over his mouth and nose, and he breathed out into cool droplets that ran down his face, through his beard and down his throat.

He pressed his palms into his eyes hard enough to hurt, and found himself conscious and not yet dizzy, which reassured him that his body hadn’t decided to betray him quite yet, despite years of misuse. The tips of his fingers were still charred and dull from magic toxicity, and that was at least familiar to him.

“Hubert?”

Hubert whirled upright as if hearing a shout, and when he turned to search for a threat, all he saw at the door was Ferdinand, lantern in hand and long hair loosely gathered for sleep. Ferdinand’s brows were turned downwards in concern, his amber eyes doe-wide, signalling to Hubert that his attempt to mask the panic on his face was unsuccessful. That worry wasn’t an alien feeling, but he’d not earned it in a while, and cursed to himself as he braced his arms against the marble counter.

“Ferdinand,” he said, and it came out as a sigh. The year was 1201 and he was married. To Ferdinand. He was in their home. Safe, by all reckonings, having avoided every comeuppance offered to him to make it to that moment.

And he wanted nothing more than to escape out of a window.

“Did I startle you?” Ferdinand asked tentatively, his eyebrows knitting in deeper thought, the way he would when Hubert used to stumble back into their bed at night, smelling like blood and miasma as Ferdinand gathered up Hubert’s swollen hands in cool, damp cloths. It felt like another life, one they shared, once, but distantly.

“No,” Hubert answered quickly. “No. Apologies, it seems as though my mind is prone to wandering tonight.”

“You missed dinner.” Ferdinand stepped into their washroom, and Hubert had to force himself not to flinch when Ferdinand reached out to brush back salted bangs. “I left some for you, on a cooling stone if you want it.”

Hubert shook his head. “Thank you, but I believe I just need sleep. Eating now would likely turn my stomach.”

“Well, I did not make it, so you need not worry about that.” Hubert couldn’t tell if Ferdinand was displeased with him or not, so visceral was the tangle in his gut still.

“Please, Ferdinand. I’ve had a long day—”

“One of many.” Ferdinand’s hand paused on the top of Hubert’s shoulder, gently massaging the knot of muscle there. “Did you speak to Edelgard about taking time later this month?”

“I will,” Hubert responded as he realized he’d forgotten to talk to her about it.

Ferdinand pressed two fingers into the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. “I am worried about you, Hubert—”

“There is no need.” Hubert tried to inject a little finality into his voice. “Please, my love, I am simply tired and wish to sleep. Nothing more or less.”

Ferdinand let out a tight breath, almost like a huff that said ‘ _We are not done talking about this_ ’ and his arm fell downwards to Hubert’s hip. “Then come to bed.”

Hubert nodded. “I will. I’m just washing up.”

He glanced down at the basin, and the dark of the bowl twisted in Hubert’s mind until it resembled blood in the water, scarlet, like Ferdinand’s blood would be if—

Sending a reassuring expression back to Ferdinand, Hubert still ran his fingers through it and was relieved to see that it was clear. A trick of the light, he concluded.

Breaking apart from Hubert, Ferdinand started his own march towards their bedroom. As he left, he announced, “If you are not beside me in five minutes I will return to drag you back with me. If I get cold I will be unforgiving.”

Hubert smiled and reached for a towel, wiping away the last of the water and hoping it would carry his thoughts away with it.

Merely exhaustion, he assured himself, and the result of a mirage in his body, old animal instincts from the days his dagger did more talking than he did. An edge in his body remained, vibrated. The sensation was one that could be dealt with, and would likely be gone by morning, should he just _sleep_ as he’d promised. He had no desire to make a further liar of himself.

He followed Ferdinand into their room.

It was a full moon, and Hubert remembered starkly how this time of year it poured in through the window, at an angle that illuminated Ferdinand’s face and turned the shade on his red-gold hair bluish even as it paled his skin.

Normally he could handle even that vision, but tonight his palms started sweating violently, and even Ferdinand glancing towards him to break the illusion of being a corpse did not quell the fear Hubert had of his own hands. A memory breached the surface, cold and ugly. Hubert had tried to smother the knowledge of it, but it became a living thing all the same, one that had needled him for years and outgrew every cage and amenity offered to it.

Now the bridge was a colossus, and Hubert fought the violent shakes threatening to tear him apart. It reminded him that his husband was only alive because of a trick of moonlight Hubert would be forever grateful for. He’d often thought back, unbidden, to what it would have been like to hear the sounds of Ferdinand struggling to breathe, feel him go limp as Hubert would have disposed of him off the side of the parapet. He’d been so ready to do it, so convinced to his core that it was necessary.

They had been married for a decade.

‘ _Your papa keeps us safe._ ’

Was that what he did?

‘ _Ferdinand_ ,’ Hubert wanted to say, desperately, even as the request died before he could utter it, ‘ _could you possibly sleep in my spot tonight?_ ’ Though there was no way it wouldn’t spawn more questions, questions that Hubert couldn’t answer, because his every word would betray a thousand lies by omission.

So instead, Hubert folded himself into bed, and wrapped the covers around himself even as his stomach threatened to revolt with nothing in it. His muscles spasmed tight, as if by electricity, and he couldn’t take his eyes off of the silver in Ferdinand’s hair, a last, desperate attempt to remind himself that Ferdinand had lived past the age of eighteen.

When Ferdinand leaned over to place a palm on Hubert’s cheek and kiss him, it took everything in Hubert to respond, to kiss back and not go rigid. Ferdinand let the kiss linger, though he relented when he recognized Hubert wasn’t initiating further. Tonight, that was a relief, even as he rolled over, his back to Hubert as he exposed his throat to that moonlight and Hubert choked down a scream before squeezing his eyes shut. On any other wretched night, he would have half-buried his face in Ferdinand’s hair and wrapped an arm around him for dear life.

Hubert didn’t dare touch him.

He came to a realization with the same profound certainty of a condemned man realizing he would die soon over an action he’d tried and failed over years to consign to the confines of a bad dream.

The house. Their marriage. The ring on his finger that felt like molten iron tonight. If Ferdinand had known, if Hubert had admitted it earlier, then there might have been truth in it. But there wasn’t. This was all a lie.

He’d never been meant to have this.

He had to tell Ferdinand.

But what purpose would it serve? It would hurt Ferdinand, surely, leave him questioning everything. What was the purpose, when it would only cause pain? If Hubert lived with a nail in his solar plexus, he likely deserved to.

No. The life Hubert had was too kind of a penance, and he hardly deserved to call it that so long as Ferdinand remained unaware, offering his daily portions of love that Hubert had taken and taken, even knowing it was wrong. Ferdinand told him he didn’t eat enough, but he’d eaten his share in mismanaged affection and that night, to the high drumming of his heart, Hubert wished he’d had the decency to choke on it before now.

He squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his head further into the pillow, and scratched at an old scar on his forearm. Ferdinand had begun to snore, and Hubert knew the children were sound asleep.

That was the only way out. He’d have lived as long as he needed to with the spikes growing inwards from his skull—into his vile, devious brain tissue—but they all deserved more than to have a wretched, lying viper in the house with them.

He had to tell Ferdinand everything. It would quickly become apparent that they’d had tea for years a stone’s throw from where he’d once planned to stow Ferdinand’s body, that Ferdinand had proposed to him not far from the place Hubert once schemed to throttle the life out of him, and that Hubert had the audacity to stumble over his wedding vows knowing he’d never revealed the truth.

And whatever Ferdinand’s reaction was, Hubert could accept it. He deserved nothing less.

Instead of releasing, the tension within him coiled to mad ferocity, fading into a dull roar in his ears as he counted the hours until his life disappeared like smoke in his hands.

Hubert slept lightly—and when he woke he wanted to scratch at the nervous shake in his shoulders as if he could pick out slivers of bone and that might let his body melt away. He wanted to claw at the sick sensation in his chest and throat as his eyes fluttered open and the early morning sun threatened to burn them out of their sockets. Whatever hope he’d had that sleep would free him from the thing that had taken hold of his mind vanished; day brought no relief from the feeling of a garrote biting into his knuckles.

As Ferdinand stretched and massaged his knee, as he did every morning, Hubert looked away, once more dragging his hands over his face. He sat up like that, barely conscious of Ferdinand rising and moving around to his side.

Next to him, weight in the mattress drew Hubert closer to the edge as one warm hand started stroking the ridges of his treacherous back. “I am sending a messenger to tell Edelgard you are not coming to the palace today.”

Hubert swallowed. “That is not necessary.”

“I think it is,” Ferdinand’s voice cracked like the world’s gentlest whip; it was the tone he’d learned to use with troops, that still echoed through the former war rooms of the palace and Garreg Mach during summits and at the signings of treaties. “You tossed and turned all night.”

Another, smaller stab of guilt came through Hubert like the prick of a thorn. “Apologies if I kept you awake.”

“I can stand to lose some sleep. You cannot.” The hand on his back moved smoothly to his neck, and it took all the self restraint Hubert had at his fingertips not to shy away. He deserved to have Ferdiand’s hands on his throat, not gently massaging the rod of his neck, working their way up to his hair to card through the freshly cut ends. Ferdinand’s other hand fell to Hubert’s chest and stomach. “Please, look at me.”

Hubert cast his eyes upwards, and did his best to add something like relaxation to his expression, to smooth down the haggard edges.

Ferdinand’s hair had a certain early morning chaos to it, haloing out in the glow of their bedroom. His honeyed skin and sweet amber eyes were still bleary with sleep, and the sharpness they had was fully fixed on Hubert. The worry there sent another pang through Hubert—it wasn’t earned, not truly—and as soon as he knew why, it would surely vanish. After Hubert told him, Ferdinand would wish worse than sleepless nights on Hubert.

All of these things he catalogued. He would soon have to say goodbye to them, he realized. To everything. To his room. To the children. Flames, the children. They wouldn’t understand, not for a long time. Hubert’s throat tightened again.

He loved them dearly; far more than his own pedantic, twisted life. Little Lysette with her little horse. Alistair with his toy swords. Delaney with her chemistry sets. He’d wanted to see them grow up, but he had to make this right first. He wasn’t fit to be around them, to call himself their father otherwise. It was the bitterest pill of all, but he would watch them from whatever distance Ferdinand deemed appropriate.

Ferdinand brushed his bangs away. “We are not as young as we once were.” A small smile, more warmth in it than Hubert had ever deserved. “I did not survive war and strife just to find you collapsed on your desk at forty-three.”

Hubert opened his mouth to decline, refuse, but he hesitated. Maybe this was an opportunity...one that would spare him sitting with his confession at his chair, trying to pretend it was just another day, waiting for everything to change in the afternoon. Perhaps telling Ferdinand when they were both in their starched official uniforms would be better, might prevent either one of them from crying. He could explain clearly and succinctly. Servants could be sent to collect his things.

But Hubert knew telling Ferdinand where they were both constrained by propriety was a coward’s path. This way Hubert could get up, help send the children to school, then have Ferdinand alone for breaking his heart. Their home would be empty for whatever curses Ferdinand threw at him, whatever he demanded in recompense. Hubert could still be out of the house that evening.

Ferdinand had given him fifteen wonderful years—Hubert could give him one last good morning.

“That’s three years away, yet.” He swallowed. Ferdinand would not want to be with him another day, another hour after what he had to say, after he spilled his youthful poison all over their kitchen. Hubert forced a slight quirk to his lip. “You know me to be stubborn, however, I might be persuaded if you could spare the time as well.”

Smile broadening, Ferdinand’s head fell to the crook of Hubert’s shoulder. “Well, no one is on the brink of war and I can write letters from my desk later.” He shot up, hand going to Hubert’s cheek. “Fine. If it will save your life...then I am simply not feeling well today either.”

The first thing Hubert did was dismiss their usual cook and assistant with a day’s pay when the woman arrived—and a little extra for making the journey. That at least had an air of normalcy to it, even if Hubert did not do it often. Family days or days for just him and Ferdinand were typically planned well in advance and the appropriate notice was given, but he’d needed to manage the needs of the household himself before, either because there was a sickness he didn’t want spreading to their staff or he simply wanted to surprise Ferdinand.

Ferdinand hurried to ready the children for school, while Hubert gathered the necessary materials for breakfast. This, his body knew how to do, even through the tremors and the iron wrought tightness of his body. Grabbing the chives, dried parsley, and chips of pepper was an echo of many cherished mornings, as was snapping open the eggs on the side of the bowl. He made quick work of whisking, and as the omelettes started sizzling Ferdinand finally emerged downstairs with Lysette, Alistair, and Delaney all in tow and all in order.

“Papa’s cooking breakfast!” Lysette announced as she crawled up into her usual chair.

Delaney sat as well, barely waiting a beat before re-opening her book. “Oh no. Did someone die?”

“Someone died?” Alistair asked, voice going high as he tripped over his words in a panic.

“No one died,” Ferdinand said, patiently. When he spoke again, his voice had the very faintest traces of a gentle warning. “Delaney, you know your brother—”

“Sorry. _Sorry_.” She turned a page in her book. “Just kidding. I love papa’s omelettes.”

Something pricked Hubert’s heart—there wasn’t a trace of anything but fondness in her voice, on that last declaration. Delaney was a smart child and her wit only became sharper as she grew. Rapidly, she approached the age when she tested the boundaries of that cleverness more and more, and Hubert had to admit that he had been dreading it.

Now, he realized he’d likely be missing those tumultuous years. His hand shook, and when he flipped an omelette a little bit of grease spat out onto his wrist. Without a sound, he rapidly wiped the spot with a clean washcloth.

Ferdinand came up beside him. When he did, he spoke in a quiet voice, hushed but not secretive. “Is there anything I can help with?”

“It is appreciated but not necessary.” He gestured to the omelette he’d just plated. “I can take the overcooked one.”

Ferdinand didn’t quite pout, but Hubert caught the trace of a sigh at the crook of his neck. Again, a wayward hand began gently stroking his back.

It took all Hubert had not to respond. One animal instinct told him to jolt away, and another asked him to lean his wretched body back into that offered—and _undeserved_ —love.

So he did nothing. By the time he moved on to the toast, Ferdinand had taken his seat at the table and opened his morning paper.

Breakfast passed without issue. Hubert served himself last and took his seat while Ferdinand praised his excellent cooking. Even Alistair, who had a particular relationship to food similar to Hubert’s, made quick work of his breakfast. Hubert picked at his own folded egg, managing the sort of small, measured bites that had moved him through the necessity of eating most of his life during the times when it truly was just that. It settled uneasily in his stomach as the children began stacking their dishes in a flurry of activity, but it seemed as though it would stay down.

With neither Hubert or Ferdinand needing to go to the palace that day, the morning was able to move at a more leisurely pace, but it still passed too quickly. Ferdinand saw the children out the door as Hubert began running water through the pump to clean the dishes. He let it run until it was hot enough for even his fingers to feel, and he quickly scrubbed at the oil with soap.

As soon as the front door shut, the house grew quiet, broken only by the sound of running water, by the plates clanking together.

Ferdinand came up behind him as Hubert started rinsing the dishes. He wrapped his arms around Hubert’s stomach and his chin fit neatly into the place where Hubert’s neck met his shoulder, warming the area where sweat had collected under his collar.

To Hubert’s surprise, Ferdinand said nothing. Hubert kept rinsing the dishes, placing the warm plates on a towel next to the basin. A golden light was coming in through the windows, reflecting off of the blooms in the little garden they had out back.

For the first time that morning, Hubert felt his resolve cracking. Perhaps Ferdinand was right—if all he needed was rest, surely it wasn’t worth ruining all they had. The night that haunted him and the jagged spines its memory shoved through the back of his hand, it was always with him, but the obsession had faded before.

Hubert stilled the water and went to dry his hands, once more tempted to just fall back into Ferdinand. He could break his husband’s heart with this knowledge any time—his own suffering was inconsequential. It didn’t need—

“Hubert,” Ferdinand started, “do you sometimes think about Garreg Mach?”

Hubert froze, his heart thundering, his quickly suppressed gasp. Ferdinand may as well have poured a box of pins down his mouth, leaving them to gag and stick and catch all the way through him. “What about it?”

“Well, there is the issue of the heresy we ended up committing,” Ferdinand mused. “But no, I was thinking more...about us.”

“Oh?”

Ferdinand held Hubert tighter, and it felt like the grip drove a handful of needles into the lining of his stomach at a criss-cross. For all Hubert’s legendary familiarity with the manners and methods of death, he was not aware of an instance where a hug had been fatal.

“I was just thinking that we could have had a grand time if we were not at each other’s throats. The battles we fought together.” He leaned in to Hubert, and Hubert felt Ferdinand’s smile, the teasing note in his words. “We could have danced together at the ball after I won the White Heron Cup. Stolen kisses behind the training yard.” Just as the smile came, he heard it vanish into Ferdinand’s next few words. “Please do not get me wrong. I am glad every day for how things are now, but...it is still nice to think about.”

As part of Hubert’s official duties during Edelgard’s ascension, the war, and its aftermath, he had attended executions. They all ultimately ended the same way, but they had similar beats, and a few different places they could go wrong. There was the procession there, the reading of charges, last words, a quick prayer, and then the exit. Sometimes the condemned dragged out the closing speech, or knelt too long in hapless prayer, or simply sobbed and fainted through the event. Hubert had always had an appreciation for the ones that knew when it was time—who said their words, mumbled their prayers, and then let the executioner have a few minutes back in his day.

Hubert had always promised that in their place, he would not drag it out.

“Unfortunately, I think the eventual bloodshed would still have put a damper on things.” Hubert rotated under Ferdinand’s arms and turned to look at him. Ferdinand had tensed in confusion, his brow knitted in concern.

Hubert ran his hand across Ferdinand’s temple and through his long hair one last time, and would that the reddish gold threads in his fingers could burn him like some searing hot brand. He glanced his thumb across Ferdinand’s cheek, then stepped away until he was standing apart, had his hands pressed so hard to the edge of the counter that he was sure it would leave an imprint on his palms.

“I have something to tell you.” Hubert’s nails dug into the countertop.

Ferdinand took a step towards him. “Hubert—”

“Please, let me say it all.” There was no going back. Now that Hubert had admitted something had burrowed into his skin, the only thing he could do was dig it out. He thought he would experience a moment of clarity, of calm, but instead the fever boiling his mind cold brought a hot, shameful stinging to his eyes. “Afterwards, whatever you ask, it is yours.”

Ferdinand blinked, mouth open as he studied Hubert, suddenly seeming as though a stranger had walked into his kitchen. In the truest manner of speaking, he had been living with one for years. He knew what Ferdinand would ask for.

“You and the children will stay in Enbarr, of course.” He swiped at his eyes roughly with his palm, and was only distantly aware that he had not cried since he was a child. Now, once he started, he feared he would not stop. “I would like to visit them, if you’ll have it.”

“ _Hubert_.” Ferdinand was on him now, voice loud, and high, with an inescapable hand cupped to Hubert’s cheek. “Hubert, you are frightening me. What has happened?”

Hubert’s heart thundered, every muscle in his body had been marked and cored, indicated for autopsy and wasting in some unmarked grave like a common murderer—

“At Garreg Mach, you wrote a letter asking for advice and placed it in the box during the Horsebow Moon—you will remember it coinciding with Flayn’s disappearance, I’m sure. Professor Eisner responded and named you as the author. Though, even if she had not, I would have known it was you. It reeked of dissatisfaction. _Sedition_.” He swallowed and wished for a gulp of poison to go with the dry foam in his mouth. “I decided then that you were too dangerous to leave alive.”

Ferdinand’s hand fell away. He dropped back, his hands falling to the white ceramic of the washbasin, leaving Hubert to swing and sway dizzily. “I...I see.”

“I chose, from a number of tools of my trade, a garrote. It’s a steel wire—”

“I know what it is.” Ferdinand’s voice was flat, far away.

Hubert swallowed.

“I waited for the right time. Watched you. You went to the stables almost every day, and afterwards the cathedral. Even in Garreg Mach, you were out of sight for long stretches.” How far he’d flown from his purpose—to be Edelgard’s biting spider, her knife. Even in the event he survived the war and the shadow conflict to follow, he’d been destined for a cold, politically beneficial marriage and an early death following a mission gone wrong, like any Vestra before him.

Ferdinand kept his eyes firmly planted in the sink as he listened to every word. “...The bridge.”

“Yes. I found you on the bridge, and there I waited for the opportunity to strangle you and toss your body over the side for the knights or some poor farmer to fish you out of the river.” He let in a breath in an ugly croak. “I nearly succeeded.”

Hubert didn’t know when he wound up on the floor, his cheek and shoulder pressed to the cupboards as he coiled around himself like the snake he was, the back of his white shirt straining against his rolled sleeves as the truth tore out of him.

The second he knelt though, Ferdinand was with him, dropping to his knees and his hands hovering uncertainly as his wide amber eyes grew full and wet. “Hubert—”

“I’m a danger to you. You must send me away.” Hubert curled, every nerve alight. It was over. It was all over. He had the rest of his life for every beautiful dead dream to eat away at him like moths ate away at dusty pages. His breaths were coming in rapidly now, catching in his throat in jagged gasps. He’d killed people whose deaths he would never regret—but how many more had been like Ferdinand? People who could have been convinced to join them, people who had just been caught in the middle. “It’s all yours. The house. The children.”

“ _No_.” At that, Ferdinand clasped at Hubert’s shoulder’s violently. He regularly trained still, and his veteran strength had never left him. He hauled Hubert away from the cupboards, held him close and held him tightly as a dozen seams came undone. “Please stop saying that. I need you to _stop_ saying that.”

But Hubert could barely hear him, tears ran freely down his face, and he shook himself loose in the empty kitchen as Ferdinand clutched at his cheek.

Ferdinand had not been scared in a long time.

Not true fear. He was not a young man anymore, and the body that had survived war with a steadfast, upright determination now barely remembered the sound of a saint’s roar thundering through the stuff between matter and magic. He still felt that hum in his bones at times, massaged an ache from an old injury or hovered his hand over any number of warped, patchwork scars on Hubert that could have taken his lover from him with an infection and a cold northern wind.

Likewise, Hubert had rarely shown fear. In their youth, Ferdinand had thought him cold blooded, so unflappable was he, so thoroughly had he held Edelgard’s secret and made preparations to march at her side. Where other people grew afraid, it seemed Hubert only hit harder, snarled back with a curved lip, and summoned deeper and more toxic magics from the ether.

Ferdinand was only sure he had seen Hubert truly afraid...twice? Once had been in the aftermath of Arianrhod, when light rained down from above and left the Silver City nothing more than a scorched crematorium. Ferdinand had been on an outlying patrol when it happened, but Hubert and his battalion had been the ones to pick through the rubble. The next came when Ferdinand had had a bad fall off his horse in Aegir, and Hubert had rushed from the imperial capital to be with him. The relief in his eyes told Ferdinand how worried he had been. His husband experienced regular rigidity. His habits and paranoia were a through line, a familiar measure of their house and the life they had shared.

Ferdinand had never seen Hubert like this.

He’d gathered Hubert up on the floor and held him through ugly, wracking sobs. He felt it in every inch of Hubert’s long body as he’d tried to curl around himself. His hands didn’t reach for comfort—it was as if Ferdinand was not even there, the way his hands dug into his own arms and pressed nails down into the white sleeves until Ferdinand was genuinely afraid he would see blood start to soak through.

He’d never seen Hubert cry before. Not true tears, and now it seemed he was making up for any time he’d lost. Ferdinand could only compare being on the receiving end of it to the feeling of standing in front of a broken dam, being carried downriver by a wall of shattered stone, mud, and water in one cataclysmic flood.

Even when the sobs finally ceased, the tension never left Hubert’s body. He was a violin, every string sharped to the point of snapping, and Ferdinand found himself not even knowing where to begin tuning it. He thought he knew every tight line of Hubert’s body, every place where stress settled to be rubbed out or kissed away. Now, there was no gentleness, every line or muscle that moved was rigid or shaking.

When the kitchen was at least quiet again, Ferdinand, breathless, stunned, finally said, “Hubert?”

There was no response.

“I’m going to sit you at the table.” Ferdinand didn’t dare kiss him right then, didn’t dare let his lips close the distance to Hubert’s ear, even as his hand gripped the other side of his forehead, as if afraid he might fly away.

Hubert barely responded, shock going through him in tremoring waves. Ferdinand eased him up to his knees and then his feet, afterward gently placing him in a chair at the kitchen table. All the while, Hubert never looked at him, as if he was trying to disappear back under his bangs like he did as a disagreeable youth.

Well, a good deal more than disagreeable, it turned out.

Ferdinand would have to consider that later.

Even a Vestra couldn’t fly, but as Ferdinand stepped away from where his hand left a sweaty imprint on Hubert’s wet cheek, he was aware how easy it would be for a mage and a spy to disappear. Right then, he feared nothing more than having Hubert out of his sight, and any moment it felt like he would turn his back only to hear the distinctive pop of a warp spell punching a hole in reality.

Yet, Hubert remained at the table, his arms still tightly folded around himself even as his shoulders hunched forward.

Ferdinand tentatively glanced back to the stove. “I am going to make some tea. Would you like some coffee?”

“If it pleases you.” Hubert’s voice sounded raw, raspy with the aftermath.

Ferdinand wanted nothing more than to reach out to Hubert once more, place his hand firmly on his shoulder, but he refrained. _He_ needed that. He wanted that. He also feared Hubert couldn’t take it, that one touch might send him careening backwards.

He began boiling water. Next, he found the small teal teapot Hubert had gotten him for their anniversary—Ferdinand couldn’t remember which one. Next to it was the new glass press Hubert used for his coffee, having recently replaced one that had a disastrous interaction with a child’s elbow and encountered further misfortune on the floor. Ferdinand prepared the appropriate quantities.

Though he fought the urge, he dared glances over his shoulder at Hubert slumped up on the chair, his fingers still burrowed in the sweaty sides of his shirt and his gaze was cast as far away from Ferdinand as he could manage without turning the chair around.

As Ferdinand poured the hot water into their drinks, he sucked in a breath of warm steam and resisted the rising tide of panic. Even the confusion was unhelpful. How had things gone wrong so quickly? Just that morning things had seemed...well, not perfectly normal. He knew Hubert was working his way up into _something_. For weeks now he’d been working hard, and Ferdinand sensed something getting ready to give—most likely an argument, Hubert sitting on the edge of the bed with his head in his hands, or simply a long conversation and a spontaneous family trip up north to Aegir. He had seen the pattern before; he knew it well.

This time, he never could have guessed the cause or the extent.

He poured their drinks. Hubert’s full coffee mug was deposited in front of him. Ferdinand went to take his usual seat at the table, but when Hubert shifted away from him a fraction, he second-guessed, and took the next seat over. He was almost too scared to feel hurt. Almost.

“Just how you like it.” He nodded to the coffee. When Hubert did not reply or move to drink, Ferdinand took a deep sip from his own cup to steady his nerves. This was not how he’d seen the day going. “Hubert...I am not angry.”

“You don’t have to be.” Hubert retreated further into his defensive posture. “I saw you looking over your shoulder. Admit it, you can’t even turn your back to me.”

Ferdinand didn’t think it was possible for his confusion to deepen, yet he somehow sank further into the mire.

“I— _no_ , Hubert. Do not be absurd.” He leaned forward, stopping just short of reaching out again. Over the years, touch between them had grown so easy, so warm and kind and regular. Now, Ferdinand may well have been married to a sea urchin. “I would tell you I was checking to make sure you weren’t going to warp away, but I am afraid I will give you ideas. Beloved—”

“Don’t call me that.” Hubert retreated back into his huddle. “I’m undeserving.”

Ferdinand’s jaw firmed. He needed to take a different approach. “You may not have much love for yourself right now, but it is not your right to tell me where to place mine.”

Hubert shook his head. “Am I to pretend this changes nothing?”

“I—must process it, in much the same way anyone would need to think about unknowingly coming so close to death.” Ferdinand spoke slowly, carefully, afraid of moving headlong into a rhetorical trap. Hubert was a clever man with words, though he denied that, too. “I knew what you were like then.”

“Truly? From the way you used to speak to me, I’d have assumed you thought the Prime Minister’s son was untouchable, or my fangs were not yet bloodied.” He swallowed. “Your tone changed enough after Edelgard took her throne.”

“I do not want to talk about that time right now.” Ferdinand forcefully waved his hand to the side. “I am not clueless, Hubert. I have always known you considered it. I am sure you had a plan to kill all of us—”

“You were the only one I stalked. Selected an implement for. Meant to murder.” Hubert listed each step like he was recounting a bad dream. “First I thought I might be able to drown you. Next I considered leaving your body in with the horse shit—”

Hubert’s voice was getting high again, moving back into a frenzy, and Ferdinand sensed danger. He nearly leapt forward, his hand grasping Hubert’s forearm. Had he detected a hint of magic? He didn’t know. “ _Hubert_. Stop. Please just...stop.”

“You are horrified by me.”

“I am afraid _for_ you,” Ferdinand said firmly, even as his voice quivered. “It was _twenty years ago_.”

“Then why can’t I forget it?” Hubert snapped, the muscles of his arm going whipcord tight under Ferdinand’s hand again. “Why do I still feel it as though it were yesterday?”

“Because you clearly have not stopped picking at it.” Ferdinand flailed for any thread of reason he could find. “ _Look_ at me. Hubert. I am no more scared of you now than I was this morning.” Unbidden, his eyes grew wet. He couldn’t right then. “If I shake, it is because my husband is talking about leaving me.”

“Would you have married me if you’d known? Would you have accepted tea from a man who once tried to kill you?” Hubert wasn’t yelling, but every word came out in a vicious, frantic whisper. “ _Well_?”

“How can I know what I would have done ten years ago?” This time, frustration came with Ferdinand’s retort. “That is unfair. I want you now. Is that not enough?”

“No.” Hubert clamshelled around the table once more. “I deceived you.”

“You have been a _good husband_ —”

“But a wretched man.” The hate in his voice felt like a callback to their school days, though this time it was not directed at Ferdinand. “None of this was meant for me. I don’t deserve you. I never have. I deserve a shallow grave—”

“Hubert, I beg of you.” Ferdinand held more tightly. “If you must speak of something morbid, I would prefer talk of leaving to graves.”

“I promise I am not stating a desire. Merely a fact.” For the first time, Hubert looked at Ferdinand, noxious green eyes glaring out from under his wavy bangs, distressed from hours of his hand obsessively running through them to clutch at his skull. “It is no secret that I often operated with impunity. I was Her Majesty’s blade. I am her spymaster. But you know I acted without her orders. Often. I believed purpose separated me from a common murderer, that I brought retribution to those that had escaped consequences. How am I to know I never made a mistake?” He sucked in an ugly sounding breath. “What does that make me, sitting here playing house with you?”

Ferdinand blinked away his own tears. He’d have never expected this. All their adult lives Hubert had been steadfast and ruthless, yes, but also viciously protective. He’d read reports from the dungeons with blood still staining his gloves, and he’d stolen life on the battlefield and in the shadows. Of course Ferdinand had had his doubts, but war had changed all of them. Their struggle against the Church of Seiros and the Agarthans afterwards had _been_ a matter of life and death. Moreso, he always thought Hubert understood the strength of that.

Ferdinand wondered if it was partly his fault for darkly loving even that side of Hubert...if he had somehow failed to make room for all this pain when the wars were over because a part of him so enjoyed that his husband was half an opera villain.

Once more, Ferdinand tried a different tact. “Hubert...you said you feel you are a danger to me. Now. In the present day. Why is that?”

Hubert convulsed away, leaving Ferdinand’s empty palm to slap at the edge of the table as a chair squealed and Hubert fled across their kitchen.

It seemed even Hubert didn’t know where he was going, aimlessly slamming palm first against the wall as he took a series of ugly, hoarse gasps.

Ferdinand cleared the distance and wrapped his arms around him, and he didn’t care if Hubert could feel how fast his heart was through the embrace. It barely counted as restraint, because Hubert fell into him. Why would Hubert be reacting this way, unless…?

“Hubert,” Ferdinand whispered, trying to keep his voice as soothing as he could, “have you thought of hurting me recently?”

“I can think of nothing else.” Hubert’s cheeks were growing wet again. “I would sooner cut my own throat.” He sucked in a breath. “A curse for what I almost did, I assume. For years I’ve had nightmares. But now...I see you die when I’m awake, too.” He was shuddering loose in Ferdinand’s arms again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Ferdinand, I beg of you. Send me away. Entreat Her Majesty to have me imprisoned.”

“I will do no such thing.” Ferdinand squeezed tighter. “We will get through this.” He didn’t know how. He didn’t even know what this was. Then, more quietly, “I love you.”

Hubert did not respond, and Ferdinand waited for the new fit to die down again.

Ferdinand’s chest was clenched as tightly as his arms. How was he to understand any of this? How was he to help when everything he did and said only made things worse?

Every time Hubert spoke, he revealed something deeper—some pathology that had gone unspoken and spent the last two decades worming its way deep inside of him. For as cold as Hubert was in his work, Ferdinand never expected to find a wound so deep. He supposed he should be flattered to be the cause, but that somehow only made him feel emptier.

His husband wasn’t getting _better_.

The mangled mess against Ferdinand’s chest wasn’t going to be healed from this in a few hours, any more than he would if he’d been struck by a carriage at full speed.

There was no time for Ferdinand to think about the ground falling out from under him. His affection only did more damage. Their house might as well have had nails sticking from every surface for Hubert to impale himself on. Ferdinand’s first thought was to leave the house, but he feared even their usual Enbarr haunts would only make this wretched mood worse. The children—

The children would be home in a few hours, and Ferdinand could not let them see Hubert like this. Though Ferdinand had made an effort to embrace his own feelings in order to help the children better understand and regulate their own, the darkness of Hubert’s mood went far deeper. He feared it would terrify them, as it did him. What if Hubert, in another fit of self-punishment, howled at them about nearly killing Ferdinand? About being a bad father? A monster?

No, that wouldn’t do. Hubert needed him now. Edelgard and the other former Eagles were family enough, and though she had never made room in the Imperial Palace on such short notice before, desperate times called for desperate measures. Yes, they could spend a few days there, enough to give him time.

Time to do what? As Hubert lapsed back into a kind of dull stillness in Ferdinand’s hands, an idea began to form in his mind.

If Hubert wanted to leave so badly, they could leave together.

After that...Ferdinand had to wait and see.

Ferdinand was perched on the edge of a gilded chair, his knee gently bouncing as he waited near a set of white double doors lined with gold. Beneath his heel, a trail of tumbled green marble marked the low patio of the imperial suite overlooking the gardens. The area was covered by large pergola supported by towering trellises. Over the last decade a sweep of honeysuckle had twined a warlike path through the diamond-shaped latticework. It was just beginning to get its rich, sweet smell, though even that seemed overpowering to Ferdinand at the moment.

The children all sat at a table at the far end of the open space. Byleth sat speaking softly with them, but the true distraction came in the form of two large Hrsevelg tabbies—they were siblings barely out of kittenhood, and already larger than any of the other four units in the Emperor’s Personal Feline Guard.

He couldn’t hear what was being discussed, but he guessed that Delaney was peppering Byleth with the questions about battlefield strategy that Ferdinand always found himself too tight-lipped to answer. Alistair bobbed a little rod resembling a fishing pole with a felt loach on the end in front of one of the large twin cats, who was growing tired and had begun batting at the toy with her hind paws. Meanwhile, Lysette carefully stroked the back of the other cat, who had spread himself out lengthwise on the table.

It was a lovely afternoon, and Ferdinand could enjoy none of it.

He squeezed his hands together, closed his eyes, and pressed both index fingers to his forehead.

When the door next to him clattered open and closed, he flung himself out of his chair.

Edelgard emerged with a look on her face that bespoke both frustration and deep concern.

“What did he say to you?” Ferdinand crossed his arms and dropped his voice. He didn’t need to ask, he knew.

“That he planned to kill you back at Garreg Mach,” she stated with a tight, angry breath. Ferdinand knew that look of frustration. “He then proceeded to explain to me in detail all of the reasons that he’s a menace and should be imprisoned.”

“By the Ten.” A dash of acrid fear settled on the back of Ferdinand’s tongue at the word _imprisoned_. Of course, he’d thought it possible Hubert would ask. Once his darling obsessive got something in his mind it was hard to unstick it, but Ferdinand had hoped that was just something Hubert had said during one senseless downward tumble that would not be repeated. “Edelgard, I beg of you to let me handle this instead. A cell will only convince him he’s right.”

“Of course I—no, I wouldn’t dream of honoring his request.” She sounded as incredulous as she would have if Ferdinand had just suggested she lock Hubert up with a hungry wolf. That helped chase away some of the sickening doubt. “I have no desire to brick him in and trap him with whatever this melancholy is.”

“I am sorry, I just...” Ferdinand pushed a hand under the collar of his shirt and jacket to massage a knot tightening up in his neck. “I’ve never seen him like this.”

“I haven’t either.” She spoke with the sad surprise of someone who thought they had seen the worst in someone else yet was realizing they could still find more. She further dropped her voice. “Are you sure taking him out of Enbarr is the best idea?”

“I have no others.” Ferdinand crossed his arms as he leaned in conspiratorially. “It’s as if he finds something new to flagellate himself over no matter which direction I turn him.”

Edelgard nodded thoughtfully, taking in his words and chewing over them between her pursed lips. It was an expression he’d seen a thousand times, over battlefield maps and treaty drafts alike.

She cast a furrowed brow and a frown up to Ferdinand, the lines of her face holding all the deep regrets that he knew she carried dangling like chains from her coronet. It was usually pushed aside, drowned by her steady hand and hidden from a face ever turned towards the dawn. Still, sometimes, it broke through. “Ferdinand, I swear to you that I didn’t know about this.”

Ferdinand processed her words for one dull second before his hand snapped up to straighten his cravat.

“Well, I didn’t think _you_ ordered him to do it, if that’s what you’re afraid of.” Hubert was in the next room hunched over with his hands set into claws to tear at his own skin and she felt the need to soothe Ferdinand’s schoolboy ego? _Besides, if the order had come from you, I would be dead_.

He bit back the cruelest words that came to mind. That wasn’t a morass of thought he wanted to wade into. Never had he permitted himself to be jealous of Edelgard’s importance to Hubert, even when remembering the times when it had been most unhealthy and heretical. Starting right then would be folly. She was a dear friend of many years, countless battles, and steadfast governance, one who only wanted to help.

“Thank you for letting the children stay here, for watching them right now,” was all he said instead, knowing he should add, _and the Empire_. They had planned for sudden absences, but both of them leaving at once would put a strain on the Emperor.

“It’s the least I can do.” Edelgard glanced back to where Byleth continued to entertain three sprouts at her table. One cat lunged to bat at a little ball with a bell while Lysette had taken over the fish toy, dangling it energetically over a tabby that leapt and bit at it. Alistair seemed to have lost interest and had his head resting in one arm while Delaney continued chatting with Byleth. Another cat had emerged from the open door to the Emperor’s rooms, this one a brilliantly fuzzy Almyran longhair with a wide, cream-colored mane.

“Please don’t worry about anything while you’re gone,” Edelgard assured before reaching for Ferdinand’s arm with a hard-won comfort. “What are you going to tell them?”

The question settled on her tongue uneasily. Ferdinand understood why; she would look after them, he knew, but she wouldn’t lie.

“The truth,” he answered, “with the horrible edges shaved off, perhaps.” He let out a breath. He had no desire to face this particular music, but he couldn’t leave without saying anything.

A handful of hours ago, the foundation he built with a man he loved had started sliding in the sand. The children would see some of that, there was no preventing them from fear and uncertainty, but the job fell to him to make sure they never felt like they had no safe ground to stand on. From feeling as he now did.

And to protect them from watching their father drink his self loathing like a draught of poison.

He readied himself, not feeling dissimilar from how he felt before giving an important speech at a charity event or to visiting dignitaries.

As he approached the table, he sensed the children knew something was wrong. Was the weariness on his face so clear? Or was that just because something was wrong, and he was only _afraid_ they could see right through him with their eyes—blue, brown, and hazel all? No, certainly they knew. The cat toys had ceased their movement, the loach no longer animated as one tabby sprinted off with the bell.

Delaney had a pensive expression, Alistair appeared confused. Only Lysette looked unconcerned, and Ferdinand envied her.

Stiffly, Ferdinand took a place on the bench, smoothing down his coat as Byleth gave him an encouraging look. Somehow, through all the respect he had for her, it only made him feel worse.

“I know today is...already unusual,” he started. “And I want you all to know that I appreciate how patient you’re all being.” He folded his hands on the table in front of him, tried not to think about three small faces finding more concern with every word. “You know your papa and I both have jobs that require a lot of us?”

All three nodded.

“Exactly. But sometimes, that means we don’t take care of ourselves the way we should. And right now…” His voice was crawling out of him at a whisper. He’d prevented wars with a calmer heart. “Your papa isn’t feeling well, and he needs me _very_ badly.”

“Papa’s sick?” Alistair was the first to speak, mouth open in confusion. They’d all seen Hubert work through runny nose and fevers alike.

“In a way,” Ferdinand answered as gently as he could. “You see, I want him to get better more than anything, but he needs help we can’t find here at home.” His lip quivered. “I need to leave with him for a couple weeks.”

“...Leave?” Lysette’s voice sounded as small as a mouse.

Ferdinand forced his shoulders to straighten, and it wasn’t the first time it occurred to him that he was making a mistake. “We’re going away. For two weeks.”

“ _Two weeks_?” Delaney spoke next, her voice going high with surprise and betrayal as Alistair’s face twisted miserably and he said, at the same time, “That’s _forever_.”

“I know this is sudden,” Edelgard cut in. Ferdinand was distantly aware of her coming up behind him and Byleth, of her placing one hand on her wife’s shoulder and then his. “But we would be honored if you could keep us company while they’re away.”

“...Where is he? Can we see him?” Delaney asked, eyes still wide.

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Ferdinand admitted, running a hand down the back of his neck.

“Why _not_?”

“Because he’s not well,” Ferdinand patiently explained.

“He doesn’t _want_ to see us?”

“No!” Ferdinand gasped it out quickly, even as he felt himself losing control of the situation. “No, of course not. He loves you all very much...”

When he looked back up, only two pairs of panicked eyes were set on him instead of three.

How his youngest managed to slip past the attention and reflexes of three veterans, Ferdinand would never know. But slip she did, and he glanced off to his side just in time to see Lysette dart out from under the table, her little legs carrying her quickly to the side door at the far end of the patio as Ferdinand nearly tripped over the side frame in an effort to get up and go after her.

“Lysette! Wait!” Ferdinand called out, but she already had one hand on the gold-plated lever and was disappearing into the shadowy interior of the room before Ferdinand had even freed himself from the table. He stumbled across the tiles, all else forgotten as he chased after her.

When he opened the door, a pillar of light spread through the dark room, and he saw several things at once.

He saw Lysette standing with her back to the doorway and one hand pulling on Hubert’s sleeve.

“Papa?”

The harsh light showed Ferdinand’s husband hunched over in his chair, forehead buried in his palms as he looked wildly up from behind a cage of fingers. The skin around his eyes was a pinkish red, and the raw bloodshot halo around the green told Ferdinand that Hubert likely cried again after Edelgard left. His mouth was open, but no sounds came out. He stared, blankly, at Ferdinand and then at Lysette, who tugged more forcefully.

“Papa.” Her voice sounded wet. “ _Say_ something.”

Ferdinand swept into the room and scooped Lysette up in both arms as she let out a shriek that could have made a flower wilt. She kicked at him, hammered her palms on his shoulders as he walked from the room.

She was getting big enough that it was a struggle to hold on, but Ferdinand had now been wrangling children a long time. Delaney had been a biter when she was very young, which placed even Lysette’s worst tantrums a scale of magnitude lower.

It didn’t stop the ache in his heart, though.

Byleth was running up to greet him, and when he was a few steps away, he placed Lysette back on the ground, where she immediately fell onto her behind and screamed again, tears streaming down her red face.

“You’re a _liar_!” she yelled. “I want papa not you!”

“ _Lysette_.” Ferdinand gently placed his hands on her shoulders to stop the thrashing. “Lysette, please listen to me.” She didn’t quite cease crying, but at least her hands firmly planted onto the patio flooring. “Good. Shh. I understand that you’re scared right now. I’m scared, too.” He dared to run a hand over her forehead. “But I greatly need your help, do you understand?”

He almost let slip the dangerous words, _papa needs your help_ , but he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t let a moment of this or whatever followed to be weighted on any of their shoulders. “Can you sit here for just a moment? I will be right back.”

After a moment, Lysette gave him a big, exaggerated nod. In response, he placed a hand to her cheek, using his thumb to wipe some of the torrential tears away. More fell, but her arms had settled and she had ceased her screaming.

Byleth, who came to crouch by Lysette and place a scarred, calloused hand on her back, glanced up at Ferdinand with an expression that wasn’t quite pitying—even fifteen years on, she’d never quite mastered that. As he rose, he heard the empress consort softly whispering.

The second his back was turned, he pressed a hand to the aching base of his neck.

Things never should have gotten this bad. He should have noticed, acted sooner. What signs had he missed? When had Hubert’s lingering gazes turned from loving glances to hosts for dark thoughts that made him fear his own hands? After all this time, was Ferdinand still so terrible at seeing the storm under the surface? Was he still just the boy on the bridge, unsuspecting of danger and ignorant of a Vestra’s mind?

As he stepped through the ajar door, something on his lips—some gentle reprimand, some request that Hubert come outside because _he couldn’t do this alone_ —he searched the shadows for that miserable, hunched over shape, and he smelled ozone the heartbeat before his mind registered that the room was now empty.

Ferdinand froze. Looked and looked again. He saw the sofa, saw the loose drapes, a rug marked by his shadow and a pillar of light, a number of empty coffee tables, unlit lamps.

A deep, terrible cold settled in his stomach.

Hubert was gone.

His husband had left.

Ferdinand’s breath stilled in his chest, and he forced air in around his tight throat.

A hundred memories unwillingly crossed his mind. Hubert during the war, moving through the shadows as if he owned them—which he often did, by blade or coin. How he would disappear for days, sometimes weeks, and only began giving Ferdinand sparse words of warning after they began their relationship proper. At least then, Ferdinand had always believed that so long as Hubert was alive he would return—to Enbarr, to Edelgard, to his own husband.

Hubert was the most capable man Ferdinand had ever known, and all of these facts supported the simple truth that he wouldn’t find Hubert if Hubert didn’t want to be found. Even if he ran himself ragged, called in every favor and upturned every safehouse that he knew of, Hubert had every means to avoid detection.

When Ferdinand finally had the mind to suck in a panicked gulp of air, a crueler thought haunted him: he’d be called to identify every dark-haired corpse fished out of the Mittelfrank River. No, _no_ —

He swayed, bracing himself against the doorway. What did he tell the children? That Hubert couldn’t come out to see them but he loved them very much? In a lightheaded rush, Ferdinand wondered how he could even face them. He could explain needing to go away together for a short time—it was wretched, but he could do it. But how did he tell them that their papa had _left_? There would be no putting the stopper back in the bottle of trust, no pretending that this was a temporary mood.

It had been a mistake to let Hubert out of his sight for even a second when he was like this.

A pair of tears threatened to fall, and he refused. No. He had to move now. There could still be time—

He felt the warp coming in the seconds before Hubert appeared again, standing not far from where he’d been placed on the couch, still looking as haggard and unkempt as Ferdinand had ever seen him as he was reconfigured by a web of purple and black energy, a swathe of magic against the material world.

Hubert’s eyes were wide, and Ferdinand stared back, feeling every dumbfounded thought on his own open mouth.

“Ferdinand—”

“Don’t,” Ferdinand said, swiping at his eyes as he stepped further into the room, until he was face to face with the unbuttoned collar of Hubert’s shirt. “Don’t start.” He shook his head. “Your daughter is out there crying for you. When I came in, I thought—it doesn’t matter what I thought. I know this isn’t a game to you, but I almost wish it was. At least that would help me make sense of you warping away after all you’ve said, as if you didn’t know the fright that would give me.”

As Ferdinand lowered his voice the fiercer it got, the deeper the coil of fear-born anger in his words. “Well—what do you have to say for yourself?”

Hubert had listened quietly, his tall head bowed as every word washed over him.

Ferdinand nearly opened his mouth to ask again when he realized Hubert had something in his hand.

“I thought I would be back before you noticed,” Hubert finally managed, by way of explanation. What was a miserable expression earlier had turned into a shameful one as Hubert offered the item up to Ferdinand.

It was Lysette’s horsey—her well-loved plush toy with the oblong body and the floppy legs.

Ferdinand blinked in the seconds before a wild, bubbling little laugh overtook him. He pressed two fingers to his nose. “I forgot.”

Ferdinand took it. “This would mean a lot more if you gave it to her.”

Hubert took a step back into the shadows, shaking his head. “You saw how she looked at me.”

 _I want papa, not you!_ Lysette had yelled, and Ferdinand dismally realized that Hubert had not heard a word of it. He considered retelling the whole thing, bringing Edelgard and Byleth in as witnesses to provide testimony in the case of who the most favored and missed father was at the moment.

But the war had taught Ferdinand to accept small victories. This was a sign of life at least, and he could take that in stride.

He reclaimed the toy and gave a couple experimental squeezes on its cushy sides. “You will be here when I come back?”

“I don’t see what you hope to accomplish,” Hubert said, voice raw and flat. “But...yes.”

“You said you would honor any request I had after you told me,” Ferdinand replied. “Are you still a man of your word?”

Hubert let slip an ugly laugh that sounded more like a choking bark. “I never have been.”

“Well, come with me. Do not flee, honor all that I ask, and at the conclusion—” He took in a shuddering breath. “—I will honor your wishes as well, short of locking you away.” For the first time, Hubert’s shoulders slumped in some semblance of relief, and Ferdinand hadn’t thought it possible for that to chip away at his heart more. “Do we have an understanding?”

Hubert gave a quick nod of acknowledgement before folding back up onto the sofa, arms tiredly curling around his skull once more as he scratched at the top of his spine.

When he was a child, Hubert had been terrified by stories of the undead.

He couldn’t say why those fictional tales were so much more frightening to him than the childhood he had in actuality. It was not stinging poisons that haunted him at night, but the idea of a powder white face tapping long nails against the glass of his window kept him up and hiding under his covers as if they could protect him from the world.

When he’d grown older, what little time he had for frivolity demonstrated to him that what used to be fear turned into affection at some point. No longer did he see the men he’d killed, their faces rotting and wan as they reached up to clutch at him from loose graves. Instead, he discovered a newfound affection for stories about ghosts, wolf-men, and other such monsters. None of these had been higher in his esteem than the vampire.

He outgrew that affinity as quickly as he came into it, but he was now reminded of how vampires needed to return to their coffins by daybreak, lest they burst into flame.

It was what he’d expected his confession to accomplish; an end to the undeath that began the night he attempted to kill Ferdinand and stretched out for the better part of two decades, his skin burned off to reveal the red-stained bone beneath. He should have been nothing after the words left his mouth—the titles of “husband” and “father” should have been stripped from him the second he admitted his deception, and he’d deserved it more with every word out of his mouth.

Instead, Ferdinand was taking him on a trip.

As he rocked back and forth atop the carriage, the sun bearing down on his face and the wind cooling his feverish skin, he again considered what it would be like to be reduced to ash.

Ferdinand stayed quiet the entire ways out of Enbarr, and Hubert remained huddled under the mantle of the travelling duster Ferdinand hastily wrapped around his shoulders as he shoved him past the attendants at the imperial palace’s stables. Though the weather was warm, the breeze cooled the sweat on Hubert’s skin, chilling him and cooking him all at once. He sat back, one leg crossed over his knee, arms folded, and back hunched.

Once they were well outside of the city with foothills and Hresvelg farmland all around them, Ferdinand finally said, “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

Hubert pried his neck free from staring straight ahead to catch a glimpse of Ferdinand’s even expression. “I see what you’re doing.”

“If you’re about to suggest that I’m enjoying the day, then yes.” Ferdinand wore a burgundy coat and had his hair tied back with a black silk ribbon. The reins pulled at his hands as they swayed loosely in time to the team’s movements, and Ferdinand provided tension where direction was needed. He was well dressed and his movements fluid, whereas Hubert felt several days ill, hastily covered, and thought he’d have to break his knee to uncross his leg.

“You’re trying to talk about anything except what we need to discuss.” Hubert’s voice sounded gravelly and felt sore, even to his own ears and nerves.

“I promise that I have no ulterior motive in remarking on the weather,” Ferdinand started, “Unless you think you are unworthy of a sunny day now, as well?”

Hubert knew when Ferdinand was laying a snare and opted not to take the bait, instead redirecting his attention to the road and sinking once more into his seat.

They sat in silence for some time, accompanied only by the sound of hoofbeats and creaking wheels.

“So if I won’t punish you and Edelgard won’t punish you, you’ll punish yourself. Is that it?”

“That’s what you think this is?” Hubert responded. “ _Self-indulgence_.”

He practically felt Ferdinand’s tight sigh, saw the way his shoulders slumped. “That’s not what I meant. You’re twisting my words.”

Hubert grasped at his elbows so tightly that it made him wonder if it was possible to dislocate his own shoulders. “That you were able to persuade her to put my safety over yours—”

“Let us be clear,” Ferdinand said, voice sharp but still warm, “this is not about my safety.”

“How can you say that?” Hubert fixed his attention on the passing countryside..

“Because if you were really in danger of dispatching me now, you have had upwards of seven thousand nights to do so. Give or take the times we’ve spent apart for the war or our work.” He swiveled his attention briefly back to Hubert. “I did the math.”

“But I imagine...” he broke off, shuddering at the memory of a hundred dark thoughts that had itched at his hands before he turned the blade of his mind against himself in comfort.

“And the imagining horrifies you,” Ferdinand interrupted.

“I could lose my mind.” The thought ate at the base of Hubert’s throat even as he gave it voice. “I may be losing it now.”

Ferdinand scowled. “I won’t entertain that idea, Hubert.”

“Perhaps you _should_.”

“I’ve gambled on you even when the odds were poor. I don’t plan on stopping.”

A wicked shudder went through him. The conviction in Ferdinand’s voice scorched his gut, and it wound up and into his throat. Hubert swallowed it, willed his eyes not to water, and turned his attention to the countryside.

All around them were golden wheat fields, occasionally interrupted by copses of trees too old or too bothersome to remove. This was the last of the good farming territory before they reached the mountain pass that would bring them to Merceus. And then— “Where are you taking me?”

“Do I detect a hint of curiosity?”

Hubert ignored the aside. “We are headed north, but are following the path of the Mittelfrank River, west of the ravine. I expect we shall rejoin it shortly before continuing through the mountains.” He paused, glancing around. “If you were taking me to Aegir, we’d have gone east or left by boat.”

“You sound fairly sharp for a man who is losing his mind.”

“Are you going to use everything I say against me?” Hubert turned his head back to Ferdinand, watching for his reaction. Perhaps Ferdinand would still come to his senses.

“Hubert, if shocking me didn’t work, being ornery won’t either.” The carriage clattered through a divot in the road. Ferdinand took some of the slack out of the reins. “I don’t wish to argue with you.”

“Then don’t,” Hubert snapped, and instantly tasted acrid shame on his tongue. What right had he to be short with Ferdinand, no matter how much he was pressed. He swallowed. “Apologies.”

Undeterred, Ferdinand continued. “I do not wish to argue with you, _but_ my sole desire at the moment is to challenge these beliefs you seem to have about yourself.” He spoke calmly, simply, as if he were referring to a disputed topic in the middle of a lengthy diplomatic summit, trying to determine where there may be room for compromise between two uncompromising parties. “I know you are in pain and I would never seek to minimize that, but I will not let the litanies you’re reading go unchallenged at this moment.” Ferdinand’s amber eyes were bright, almost wet as he kept them fixed on the road. “I’d not let anyone else say the things about you that you have in the last few hours.”

Of course Ferdinand would treat this as a problem to be solved.

Hubert squeezed his eyes shut against the bright sun, took in a few shuddering breaths to try and rally his mind, find some way through the labyrinth of inflexible muscles to let them relax, to get the pain in his chest to abate, let him breathe cleanly. It might as well have been rigor mortis, except for the pain brought on by the ceaselessly clenching muscles of his back and gut. He saw no path out, short of wondering when his aging heart would finally give out should the condition continue.

They travelled in silence for the rest of the day.

They stopped at an inn that night just at the base of the mountains. Though remote, it saw a good deal of merchant traffic, and was partly subsidized due to its important location along the road north. It was across from an imperial way station, which would allow them to change out their horses before setting out in the morning.

Ferdinand had left Hubert with the carriage while he went in to make arrangements. He pulled the mantle tight across his shoulders as a cold wind blew down from the peaks and a red sun set in the distance. In the span of a single day of travel, the elevation climb and being just a little further north had taken them from summer to autumn. Hubert had always had cold arms and feet. Unlike Ferdinand he was prone to catching a chill if he remained inactive for even a moment. Overhead, ravens cawed, and he waited while some lads began detaching and leading the horses off to the stable across the way.

By the time Ferdinand came back out to him, the sun had mostly set, and the cool, dark evergreen tones all around him were mostly lit by the orange-gold glow from inside the inn. Hubert could see his breath in the air and heard raucous sounds coming from inside the dining hall at the base.

Ferdinand came up to him, his cheeks pink with the drop in temperature, and Hubert couldn’t help but notice the bounce Ferdinand had kept in his step.

Hubert stayed stuck to the seat he had been in all day, save for the few breaks they’d taken to keep their blood from settling and water the horses.

“I’ve secured us lodging for the night,” Ferdinand declared as though nothing was wrong. “All I had to show them was the seal of the Prime Minister’s office. No names.”

A noncommittal noise started and died in Hubert’s throat.

Ferdinand lifted his hand to help Hubert down, as if that was the problem.

“I’m not an invalid,” Hubert said, bracing his hands against the wood frame and lowering himself carefully down the two steps to the ground. However, it had been quite some time since their last rest, and he felt a punishing ache the second he tried to straighten out his knees.

“I never said that,” Ferdinand said, and Hubert recognized the patient tone and sensed another paper-thin layer of guilt added to the pile. “I just thought you might want a little help down.” As he began leading Hubert inside. “I figured you would want to go right up to the room.”

This time, Hubert stayed silent. He didn’t know what Ferdinand was planning, but it had been the end of a long day of travel, on top of having split open his own rib cage to remove a cancerous secret. Experience told him he was likely to be irritable, and Ferdinand was the last person he wanted to direct that towards.

Heat stung his cheeks the second they stepped inside. He allowed himself to be led upstairs, past the dining hall and the sound of laughter there. Ferdinand did not glance back once, and Hubert wondered if he wanted to.

Their room already had a fire going and a lantern lit on the table. Ferdinand packed in a rush, but their suitcase was already waiting for them.

Hubert stepped inside, drawing off the coat in a moment of stark disorientation.

Had it only been that morning that he told Ferdinand everything?

As recently as two nights ago, he was preparing for another day of the life he’d had for the last decade. Even now, staring at the ruin in his wake, he didn’t fully understand what happened.

Well, of course he knew what happened. He’d had a thousand opportunities to tell Ferdinand about the night on the bridge, each one a chance to treat the wound instead of allowing it to fester. Instead, he’d stayed selfishly quiet, robbed Ferdinand of a life with someone who hadn’t tried to kill him and lied about it. That near act of violence had dogged him with thoughts of others when he was tired, but that too reached a crescendo.

Now they were headed north, en route to...somewhere. All official duties forgotten, children left with Edelgard and the Empress Consort.

Hubert would admit the change of scenery had a numbing effect, at least. There was still a gaping maw where his life used to be, but some of the prickling on his skin was fading, replaced by a very human tiredness even as his muscles continued their attempt to turn to stone.

He realized he’d found no relief from confessing; it had just plunged him into a precipice he’d been avoiding for years, leaving him surrounded by something like miasma. He thought it would be a way out. The second the words left his mouth, he understood that there was no going back, but he didn’t understand the depth of his grief. Or how much he feared his own hands.

Would he be like this forever?

Somewhere, in his haze, he took stock of the layout of the room.

“There’s only one bed,” he noted, feeling a guilty twist in the base of his gut.

There was, and it was easily large enough for two as well.

Hubert couldn’t see Ferdinand’s face when he said it, but there was a pause before he finally concluded, “Of course. We’re married.”

Hubert swallowed. How could Ferdinand bear to share a bed with him after all he’d said? “Are you sure—”

“ _Yes_. I’m sure.” Ferdinand’s voice left no room for argument. There was another beat—perhaps Ferdinand waiting for him to argue—before he added. “I’ve requested two bowls of stew be brought up. It would mean a lot to me if you would try to eat some.”

Hubert scowled, his throat tightening at the thought. Despite not feeling the slightest bit hungry, he relented, “I will try.”

Best not to let anything go to waste.

When the bowls were brought up to them, Hubert tried a couple bites of the roll. Sourdough. Relatively fresh. He should have liked it, though both bites may as well have been ash in his mouth. He chewed until the bread turned sweet, out of fear that his uncooperative body might refuse to swallow next. He opted to pick at the meat, and he found the iron tang of beef slightly more acceptable. Bread and protein. His body would last with that. It settled without nausea, and the pinprick of his gag reflex soon settled down. Hubert didn’t believe he could ask for anything more.

He still knew Ferdinand was disappointed when he shoved his bowl away without having finished half of it. Normally, he would have said something, but with things as they were he simply transferred the remains of Hubert’s dish onto his own.

When they changed for bed, Hubert settled quickly into the covers. He selected the right side, which allowed him to face the wall and not see Ferdinand undressing behind him.

“Hubert,” Ferdinand said, “can you tell me something?”

“I don’t know how I could refuse,” Hubert answered.

There was a heavy silence, characteristic of Ferdinand trying to carefully select his words. “Has it...always been like this for you?”

Hubert was so confused he almost turned so he could examine Ferdinand’s expression. Instead, he kept his face firmly planted on his pillow. “I don’t understand your meaning.”

“Us,” Ferdinand explained, his voice unreadable and flat. “All we’ve shared. Has it been tainted by...this?”

The question took Hubert by surprise, the gentleness of Ferdinand’s voice breaking through some of the shell around his mind, worming into the soft center of his brain.

Hubert’s back dipped towards the center of the bed when Ferdinand sat down at the edge. Behind him, he heard the quiet sound of fingers running through long hair to braid it. He wanted nothing more than to will his clumsy, uncooperative joints to help, thought painfully of the last time he’d brushed Ferdinand’s hair soft and sectioned it out, wrapping the strands together. He knew Ferdinand kept the ribbon they’d been handfasted with at their wedding, but the act of braiding Ferdinand’s hair—morning or night—meant more to him than any ritual token.

Knowing Ferdinand was tending to his hair just on the other side of the bed weakened some of his resolve.

But Hubert shoved the impulse away. Even if he thought he deserved the joy it brought him, even if he could lie to himself as he always had and steal his joy under the guise of service....he didn’t trust his hands so close to Ferdinand’s throat. Ferdinand shouldn’t have either.

“Were you thinking of it at our wedding? When we adopted Delaney? When you embraced me after the battle of Fhirdiad?” Ferdinand’s voice was curious, careful, and sad all at once. “Did you think of it when you brought me tea?”

Hubert shuddered, clutched the blanket tighter around his shoulders.

A longer silence followed. “Did you...was this all _because_ of your guilt?”

“No.” Hubert didn’t need to think before he spoke, his heart pounding in his chest. “No, Ferdinand—” He swallowed, realizing what he’d said, and sank further into the bed. Ferdinand waited at the edge, making no move to lay down.

“I meant every second,” Hubert said. Fearing Ferdinand would draw worse conclusions, Hubert had no choice but to answer his question. “I wasn’t thinking of it when I acquired the tea. I only…” He’d only thought of the look on Ferdinand’s face, the smile that he was accustomed to by the war’s end. He folded over himself a fraction. The _problem_ was that he’d been happy. “I wanted to tell you.”

“But you never did?”

“Because I did not want it to end.” Hubert’s traitorous eyes began to water again, and he wondered what it would be like to pluck them from their sockets. “There was never a good time.”

“And for some reason, eleven on a Wednesday morning twenty years later seemed to be it?” Ferdinand sounded tired.

“I don’t know what happened.” Hubert took in a breath that he felt shake his bones.

“I don’t either,” Ferdinand said, and with a sigh, he laid down in the bed. Then: “It saddens me that you bore this alone so long.”

Though the frame was large enough for either of them to sleep alone comfortably, Ferdinand still pressed warmth into Hubert’s back. He went rigid in response to Ferdinand’s molden hand wrapping around his stomach. It wasn’t an unusual position for them, but Hubert sensed the exhaustion in Ferdinand’s own body, the desperate quiver from a day of emotional and physical turmoil. He wondered if this was part of his punishment, or simply Ferdinand’s way of anchoring him? Desperately trying to keep him from panicking and warping away in the middle of the night?

“Hubert.” Ferdinand’s forehead touched the base of Hubert’s skull before he softly kissed the space between two vertebrae. “I love you.”

It felt like a blow, and for the second time since those words were originally uttered nearly a decade ago, Hubert found himself unable to return them.

Still, when Ferdinand began softly snoring, Hubert worked his wiry frame into motion so he could clutch at Ferdinand’s lax hand and draw his knuckles up to his mouth to kiss them.

Hubert must have eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep, because it seemed very little time at all had passed between the hour he shut his eyes and when daylight filtered in through the crystal window of the inn. Fortunately, he did not dream, but he slept lightly enough that the sun still made his eyes ache when he finally woke.

He experienced a momentary disconnect when he did not recognize the room before he remembered how unceremoniously Ferdinand had spirited him away from Enbarr. Pressing the heel of his palm into one of his eyes, Hubert wondered if his body had gotten any benefits from sleeping. His heart was racing and his mind alight most of the night, and the morning only dulled those conditions—they were hardly erased.

The raggedy feeling in his skin was gone, but in its place were thoughts of stolen time and a cavernous ache.

For the first time in his adult life, Hubert did not wish to get out of bed. Or do anything else except lay there and breathe. The sensation of leaden weights holding him down was foreign—he’d often pushed himself past the point of exhaustion and still risen to fulfill his role. But without a war, mission, or children to inspire him to fight the sensation, he very easily could have stayed in one spot, staring at the same window until time found meaning again.

The bed shuddered as Ferdinand got up and loudly groaned. Hubert was familiar with the sounds of Ferdinand waking, but this morning he was a bit slower, a bit less certain. He dressed slowly, and did not engage Hubert in conversation. Between Hubert being unable to work his throat and Ferdinand’s silence, the morning passed in unusual quiet.

When Ferdinand left, letting the door shut behind him with a gentle click, Hubert wondered if he would be coming back at all. Perhaps he’d come to his senses, the reality of what Hubert had done settling in, allowing him to realize that _he_ could not return to the way things were. It had only been a day, after all, and denial did not last forever. Naturally, Ferdinand had wanted to cling to what they had, but the truth had to have been eating away at him.

Ferdinand returned with two bowls of oat porridge. He placed them on the table in Hubert’s sight—on the side of the room with the window—and gently turned to look at him when Hubert made no move to rise.

His expression was uncharacteristically flat, and Hubert had no way of deciphering the meaning short of hoping that it meant Ferdinand was coming to his senses.

That, too, brought no comfort.

As Hubert watched, Ferdinand’s brow dipped and he frowned. “We have a long day ahead of us, Hubert.” He stepped forward a half-measure before reconsidering. “I know I cannot…” He sucked in a breath through his nose. “Eat. Please?”

It was as much of a summoning as any, and Hubert found enough will to place his feet on the cold floor and pad across to the small table where they’d eaten the previous night. The porridge was lightly sweetened with honey and a pair of cut strawberries. Though he didn’t normally care for sweet things, the porridge was easy enough to eat. He took measured, careful bites of the strawberries and appreciated the life they brought to the slop. It was more palatable than their meal last night, but that did not stop Hubert’s appetite from failing him. Again, he pushed it away. This time, Ferdinand made no gesture of disappointment, and simply laid Hubert’s half-full dish on top of his clean bowl when finished.

It occurred to him that Ferdinand was no longer intensely watching him, the way he had the previous night. Instead, his movements were short and contained, if a bit sluggish, and he seemed to look everywhere in the room except at Hubert. His attention fell to the table, the window, the suitcase, or the floor, as if Hubert was some shadowy thing that avoided light or notice.

When Ferdinand rose, he busied himself with the dishes, laying out coins for the cleaning staff, and checking the map secretively over the bed. Hubert likely could have risen to his feet, gone over to investigate, but instead remained in place. Seemingly satisfied with his plan, Ferdinand folded the map and replaced it under the breast of his red travelling coat.

Smart. If he’d left it in the room, Hubert wouldn’t have been able to refuse looking. Drowning in miasma or not, there were some instincts that still came to him more naturally than the necessities of life.

“I would like us to be able to leave after I pay and drop off the dishes,” Ferdinand announced, looking to the side near Hubert’s hand. “Do you think you might be ready to go?”

Hubert nodded. “I will be presentable by the time you return.”

Ferdinand took that information the same way he would have heard a scouting report during the war, or weathered news of a routed battalion. He inclined his jaw a fraction to show that he’d heard it, but his eyes remained downcast and his eyebrows dipped in deep thought. It was the face he made when there would be time for mourning later.

As he left, Hubert pried himself free and doused some clean water on his face. Afterwards, he dressed in silence, save for the muffled sounds that came from the other rooms or the hallway. He made an effort not to look at himself in the mirror—he always seemed somewhat ill, but the last two days had taken their toll.

Well, he supposed the days had been taking their toll even before then, when he realized how long it had been since the last time he went out in the field. Not to mention the month previous, when Ferdinand had harangued him about taking a vacation, which Hubert hadn’t understood. As his work had transitioned from him coming back smelling like a stranger’s gore to having ink stains on his fingers, was that not the same thing?

He made sure everything was packed, carefully folded, and managed a final sweep of the room before Ferdinand returned. Ferdinand did give Hubert a cursory glance—presumably to make sure he was well-dressed enough that no one thought Ferdinand was shepherding a plague corpse from town to town—before hefting up the suitcase and leading the way back out to their carriage.

They travelled most of the day in silence. The mountain air grew cool enough that Hubert didn’t complain when Ferdinand handed him one of the heavier coats he brought with them. The sun still shone, but a cold wind still blew down from the near, high peaks. The goal was to get through the pass in the day, Hubert imagined, though Ferdinand had not vocalized this to him.

However, that didn’t stop Ferdinand from pausing in the middle of the day and beginning to unharness the horses. Hubert watched in confusion as Ferdinand juggled two lead ropes, a bag of supplies, and gestured to Hubert.

“There’s a stream at the end of a trail off that way.” He motioned with his chin. “The team will appreciate some water, and I want to go for a walk.”

Gathering Ferdinand’s meaning, Hubert unstuck himself from his seat, bones still aching from the cold and the impact with the hard-packed road as he straightened out. The journey so far had been especially hard on his knees and ankles, and he told himself it was just the way he’d been sitting, though family history told him it was not an isolated problem and wouldn’t improve with time.

He took one of the leads. When he did, the gelding tossed his head back in surprise, and Hubert sent a quick ripple down the rope just to get the beast to focus. When he lowered his head, Hubert ran a palm down the horse’s neck to soothe him. It was an old routine—horses not trained around mages could be flighty when handed over to one. But as he and Ferdinand began walking, the animal gave no further complaints.

As promised, they found a clear mountain stream and let the horses drink. When they were done, Ferdinand loosely tied them to some branches off to the side and gave them their feedbags.

Ferdinand sat down near Hubert by the stream. Out came the bread and cheese, with Ferdinand taking a dull little knife and serving himself before he offered Hubert a slice of each.

Reluctantly, Hubert accepted.

As he chewed his dry portion, he realized the scene was almost a normal one. After the war but before they began adopting the children, they took frequent rides up to Aegir so Ferdinand could show Hubert all of the former duchy’s little wonders. The two of them always had lunch to the sound of a pair of horses cropping grass. Instead of a mountain stream, they ate or made love with the ocean softly roaring in the background.

“You’re smiling.”

Hubert’s attention shot over to Ferdinand.

Ferdinand was propped up on a large rock not far away, and he watched Hubert directly. He smiled as well, and it was the most relaxed Hubert had seen him since the previous morning.

Hubert didn’t make any effort to blank his face, but he did turn back to his food. The bread was sweet, the cheese fragrantly salty, and though Hubert’s stomach still felt impossibly small, he no longer felt like he was choking at the slightest thing.

As he finished his last precise bite, he glanced around. “I was merely reminiscing about our visits up the coast. After the war.”

“I would smile, too,” Ferdinand said. “They were good trips.” He finished the last of his lunch in turn, brushing crumbs off of his pants as he looked up and down the stream as far as he could. “We’ve had a lot of good times, Hubert. I’d like to think those days outnumber the bad ones now.”

Just like that, an ache like a clot found its way back into Hubert’s chest and throat. “I never said they didn’t, but surely you acknowledge that the bad days were worse than you believed?” _That I am worse than you believed_.

Ferdinand let out a long sigh. “That could be said for both of us, Hubert.”

That caught Hubert’s attention. “What do you mean?”

“I never told you,” Ferdinand started. “Shortly after the Black Eagle Strike Force took Garreg Mach, and my father’s house arrest, I nearly left.”

A lead weight settled in Hubert’s stomach. He looked over at Ferdinand, searching for any sign of a lie on his face. He only saw steadfast earnestness, the same face he’d known honesty in for half his life now.

“And not just left.” His voice took on a hard, horrified tone as he glanced across the stream. “Edelgard said we could if we wanted to, but I’d have probably ridden for the Alliance. I don’t know that for sure but...I do know I gathered up my saddlebags and a few day’s rations.” Face twisting in pain at the memory, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “I was so _angry_. With you and with Edelgard, yes, but mostly with myself. That I had been so stupid, been so blinded by trying to see something good in my own reflection that I hadn’t been ready to know what to do.” He let out a breath, and Hubert saw something fierce in his amber eyes.

“I was afraid, too. Edelgard defanged me, yes, but even then I was aware that she would have been better off if I had some sort of accident.” He let out a soft laugh. “You were right, about what you said. I thought you wouldn’t dare do anything to me because of who my father was. I always wanted to do right with the power I had—but so too was it my sole source of worth and safety. When she arrested him, I realized how precarious my situation really was. Moreso, without that birthright, I feared I had no value at all.”

Hubert listened in a kind of dull silence, Ferdinand’s words registering even as he failed to understand them. The ache in his chest splintered and dragged itself out in slivers from the center.

“Our happy ending does not rest entirely on your shoulders,” Ferdinand continued, “We both made choices, and we both could have made very different ones.” His throat fluttered under his tie with a forceful swallow. “It does hurt, Hubert. That night on the bridge...I thought it was the first time you had ever seen me for me.” He swiped at his eyes. “What stopped you?”

“My resolve wavered as we spoke.” Hubert fought the swirl of nausea rising in his chest. Nevertheless, he pried the memory free. “Yet I’d been about to act when...you kissed me.”

A long, agonizing silence followed, broken only by a sharp, mad little laugh. Ferdinand ran a hand down his face. “Would you believe I felt horrible about that kiss? I thought I’d crossed some line and violated your trust, whatever it was.”

“I know you did.” Hubert spoke more to his shoes and folded hands than he did to Ferdinand. “I still have the letter you gave me afterwards.”

Ferdinand cupped his own face in both hands. When he drew them down, Hubert could tell his cheeks were wet. “Hubert, what are we going to do? I want to move past this.”

Hubert squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on the sound of the running water. “You’d have left for sure if you knew I once intended to kill you.”

There was a beat as Ferdinand’s expression went wide and stunned. “I didn’t— _damn it, Hubert_ , I did not tell you that so you could claim even my hypothetical treason was your fault. You know as well as I do that if I’d ridden off then you’d have spent the rest of your life angry you didn’t strangle me when you had the chance.” His voice was growing high and irritated. “I said something because I want to show you that it is possible to feel bad about something without sending yourself off to the butcher for it. You are not even required to be miserable to make amends.”

Hubert doubled over once more, his hands moving of their own accord as they folded around him and brushed up and down the sides of his arms as if to generate warmth. Again, he wanted to scratch off his skin like a reptile’s shed, wanted to claw at it until he was raw and bloody. Whatever horrible metamorphosis he was going through, he wanted to be done with it, no matter what lay on the other side.

“Is that what all this is?” Ferdinand cautiously queried, even as his voice took on a harder edge. He leaned further on his stone to try and get a look over Hubert’s hunched shoulders at his hidden face. “Will you not be well until I properly punish you?”

Hubert’s eyes stung again. A wash of loathing followed. “You make it sound so simple. This is no game, Ferdinand.”

“I know it’s not.” Ferdinand spoke in a hushed, desperate whisper. In a moment, the morning’s aloofness—marked by the placid statesman’s face—had returned. He rose to his feet, hands clasped behind him like he meant to stand at attention. “I had hoped...nevermind what I hoped. We’ll need to get back to the carriage if we’re going to make it out of the mountains tonight.”

Hubert stayed planted on his stone, waiting for the ache in his throat to die down as Ferdinand saw to the horses and gathered them up. Hubert forced himself to stand so he could go help walk them back, only to see Ferdinand striding off on his own with both horses in tow.

His throat went dry and cracked, and he rubbed his own shoulders once more.

A few things became clear all at once.

Ferdinand had a certain destination in mind. Hubert was having a hard time guessing which point on the map they were headed towards, since the mountain pass was such an odd choice, but the unmistakable tone in Ferdinand’s voice betrayed a plan.

Hubert’s confession did disturb him, far more than he’d let on.

His words and voice carried finality with them.

One way or another...Hubert suspected things were coming to an end. It made his knuckles hurt and his jaw clench.

Hubert managed to keep his lunch down and made his way back down the path.

It took Hubert too long to realize where they were headed. For three days they travelled in nearly absolute silence, broken only by Ferdinand occasionally encouraging Hubert to eat and other necessary communications.

He didn’t want to acknowledge it when they took the road through Varley up from Fort Merceus, though the dread settling in his gut told him that he knew what was coming, even before he saw the old stone keeps clawing at the sky from their high hill. He knew the rocky flanks, the village beneath, the large open field gouged with a wounding canyon on the far side. As their carriage made incremental progress through the careful switchbacks, Hubert felt ill.

The last time he’d been there had been victorious at Her Majesty’s left hand, opposite Ferdinand at her right, but the memories of the week had etched that away—had etched _him_ away. He could think of very few reasons for Ferdinand to bring him back to the former Officer’s Academy, and all made him remember the rot in his bones.

He didn’t know what was planned for him here, but he did feel a little bit of the tension in his body releasing with the realization that it would be _fitting_ , whatever it was.

“I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this,” Ferdinand said evenly as they approached the gates. “But you leave me no choice.”

Hubert hadn’t been able to respond—he’d barely heard it as they entered through the western gate and the walls closed in around him. He’d stayed in the carriage while Ferdinand spoke to the current curator and warmly greeted the custodial staff. There were no students present—Edelgard wanted to commit the site to historical preservation first, though in time the plan was always to convert it back into a school. The project found itself subject to numerous delays, and Hubert couldn’t have been more glad for it.

The wrought iron feeling in his muscles had drained away into...nothing, and he was sure by the sensation in his gut that his organs had turned to pulp. By the time he followed Ferdinand up the steps of the Reception Hall, his arms were firmly stuck in his jacket. His legs felt like lead, uncooperative as his shoes thudded across the floor and Ferdinand’s path remained uncompromising.

As Ferdinand opened the door from the grim corridor to reveal the long bridge, Hubert’s heart clenched. Vertigo shifted him, and the center seemed to stretch forever as he paused, swayed. The setting sun lit it up in shades of fiery orange, and in that moment Hubert could only assume that Ferdinand planned to immolate him.

He paused at the edge, hands free but folded in front of him as if they were bound. Whatever Ferdinand had planned, he couldn’t _do_ it—

Ferdinand, noticing that Hubert no longer followed him, turned and resolutely gripped at Hubert’s elbow.

“Move.”

Hubert hollowly staggered after him, convinced he would turn to dust with any step as a low sickness rose in his throat.

Ferdinand led him out to the center, where he braced himself against a pair of merlons. He gazed out to the shadowy abyss on the other side, leaving the sun at his back, the old cathedral to his right, and Hubert ignored. His reddish gold hair had darkened with age, but it still glowed when the sun hit it.

With a heavy breath, Ferdinand straightened himself up and faced Hubert.

He reached into his coat to produce a length of rope. Too short and slight to properly hang a man, but strong enough to wrap around someone’s throat and do the deed all the same.

Hubert’s heart thundered, but the animation didn’t reach the rest of him, nor could it penetrate his dull limbs. There was something fitting about this, about Ferdinand planning to end him here—

“Apologies,” Ferdinand said. “I did not have a garrote readily on hand. I hope this will suffice.”

Ferdinand grabbed Hubert’s hands and thrust the rope into his palms.

Hubert stared—bewildered—at the rope he loosely held in his fingers.

He looked back up at Ferdinand, breathing through his parted lips. “Ferdinand...”

“Well?” Ferdinand asked, spreading out his arms and opening himself up, lifting his chin so Hubert could see his exposed throat. “If you want to finish the job, this is your chance.”

A rush of hot panic went through Hubert when he realized Ferdinand’s meaning, followed by a twisting sensation, as if he’d swallowed a peach pit. He looked from Ferdinand’s exposed chest, to his open hands, to the rope that suddenly may as well have been raw lightning in Hubert’s hands.

He tossed it to the surface of the bridge, a dizzy spell washing over him as it slapped to the ground. “Ferdinand, please don’t do this—”

Frowning, Ferdinand looked down at the rope and went to pick it up again. “Why the hesitation? I know you know how to use it.”

The distant, palpable humming in Hubert’s ears grew louder as Ferdinand pried open his clenched fist once more and replaced the rope.

“Come on,” Ferdinand urged. “Make it quick if you’re going to do it.”

“I’m not,” Hubert’s voice came out weak, and he took a tentative step back, his hand bracing himself on stone as his knee threatened to buckle.

Ferdinand pursued him with a step, and though Hubert had always been taller, Ferdinand loomed over him now.

“Why the hesitation?” Ferdinand taunted again, and Hubert’s hands quivered as Ferdinand gestured at them. “If you are that _desperate_ to end the life we have together, then _end_ it. Fast. I’d prefer that to what you’re proposing.”

In desperation, Hubert whirled around for an escape. There was only the infinite bridge on either side of him and the infinite fall off each edge, and the thought of both made him dizzy. As he stepped back and Ferdinand approached, all light and fury despite the sun setting, Hubert tripped. He fell back, his shoulder caught in a crenel, the rope falling uselessly across his stomach.

“I _can’t_.” He tried to scramble away as Ferdinand knelt in front of him. Hubert wiped a hand down his face as more tears threatened to fall. “Stop this, please.”

Ferdinand’s voice and expression gave no quarter. “Not until you tell me why you _can’t_ when you’ve spent the last five days trying to convince me that if you stay you’ll end up killing me.”

Hubert remained on the side of the bridge, pinned by the intensity in Ferdinand’s eyes.

“Because you are not acting like you want to stay.” As Ferdinand kept speaking, Hubert wished each word was a knife instead.

When Hubert said nothing through his tremors, Ferdinand looked down to the rope. Without hesitating, he reached for it. “Here, I’ll get it started for you.”

“ _No!_ ” Hubert lunged forward. He still had strength and agility, and despite his position he was able to rise up, clutch at Ferdinand’s collar and pull him down until he had his hands wrapped around Ferdinand’s back, effectively pinning his arms to the side and keeping him from reaching for the rope as a surge or raw terror went through him. Of the two of them, Ferdinand needed to live. For years it had been an unspoken rule of Hubert’s once Ferdinand became the prime minister, but it became law for him after they’d adopted Delaney.

“Tell me.” Ferdinand’s voice had lost some of its steel muffled against Hubert’s throat. “Tell me why.”

“I love you,” Hubert whispered. “I could never hurt you and the idea that I nearly ended you _haunts me_.” He took in a gasping breath. “I loathe myself for it.”

Ferdinand had gone still against him, and that too was broken by Ferdinand wrapping his hands around Hubert’s back. He sucked in a breath. “Then you understand why I cannot watch you do this.” His cavalier’s arms wrapped around the small of Hubert’s back, pulling him closer. He buried his face in Hubert’s neck as Hubert’s face was thrust into a sea of bright copper. “I might not be able to stop you from hating yourself, but I wish you wouldn’t.” He squeezed until Hubert felt his breath rattling. “Let me get through this with you.”

Tears streamed down Hubert’s cheeks, and he realized in horror that Ferdinand was crying, too.

“I nearly killed you,” Hubert rasped out.

“And my life has been more worthwhile because you are in it.” Ferdinand hissed in a breath.

“The children need you.” Hubert’s voice went high and unfocused. “You didn’t mean what you said...?”

Ferdinand forcefully kissed the spot where Hubert’s jaw met his ear. “I knew you wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Maybe not,” Hubert admitted, and a horrible cord of muscle in his back came unclenched as he said it, allowing him to breathe a little more easily with the acknowledgement. “But what I did…surely there’s no way to make amends.”

At that, Ferdinand broke away until they were facing each other, his hands firmly on Hubert’s shoulders to hold him in place. His eyes and cheeks were red, and Hubert didn’t imagine he looked much better. “Yes, there is.”

“How?”

“Be my _husband_.” He blinked tears away. “If you ever wished to leave, it would wound me but I will accept it. But if you want to stay, then that is all I ask in turn. Truly.” He paused, reaching up to stroke aside Hubert’s bangs. “I want to go to recitals with you again. And take care of the children when they’re sick and worry together in the kitchen. And eat at our table.” A beat. “Do you want that as well?”

Whatever remaining tension holding Hubert up released, and he fell forward, grasping at Ferdinand with weak hands. “More than anything.”

Ferdinand drew him closer, took a sharp breath in from where his face was buried in Hubert’s coat as his hand came up to match the line of Hubert’s neck, fingers massaging the back of his head. Hubert’s body shuddered as Ferdinand coughed out a pair of painful sobs.

They stayed like that, huddled together on the bridge until the moon rose and the chill finally drove them indoors, hand in hand.

~*~*~

As he had done every morning for a month, Hubert began the quiet part of his day by washing the dishes. He let the water run hot and hiss over every ceramic surface, and kept the temperature lower so as not to scald the skin on his hands untouched by years of magic use, that could still get pink and burn.

The house always got quieter immediately after breakfast. Not that Hubert ever had much reason to know that. Before he’d been forced to take leave, he rarely spent much time alone in his own home. Usually, Ferdinand or the children were there, and the previous four weeks had given him plenty of time to get used to peaceful silence.

Things were a little different. Ferdinand hadn’t left for the palace yet—wouldn’t, as he had also decided to take the day off. Despite the change in routine, Hubert heard Ferdinand coming up behind him, emphasized by the distinctive sound of his riding boots on the wood floor.

Hubert turned his head to acknowledge him before Ferdinand stepped closer. He was garbed in his simplest riding coat and breeches, and had a clunky helmet held under one arm. Further up, his braided hair fell over one shoulder. He’d tied it himself that morning.

“I am headed to the stables,” Ferdinand announced slowly, carefully watching Hubert’s reaction.

Swallowing, Hubert reached for a cloth to dry his hands.

“I should pack you a lunch,” Hubert answered, shutting off the water and turning to face Ferdinand.

“I’ll be back before then.” Ferdinand stood as if at attention, though his gaze flickered. Another time, Ferdinand might have initiated a kiss before he left, but the last month had come with many adjustments.

Hubert leaned in, brushed his lips against Ferdinand’s and then planted a second kiss to his cheek, just over his beard. “I look forward to hearing all about it upon your return.”

Visibly relaxing, Ferdinand smiled. “You know me.”

“How’s Lysette?” Hubert asked.

“Better,” Ferdinand answered. “Her stomach is still ailing her but...better. I think it was wise to keep her from school another day.” His expression changed. “Besides, I think she’s been enjoying spending so much time with you.”

Hubert bit down the _I don’t know why_ that threatened to spit from his lips, and instead forced a smile. “Well, we will look forward to seeing you home, then.”

As Ferdinand turned to leave, Hubert suppressed the desire to ask which route Ferdinand planned to take. Since they’d become lovers, he’d always wanted to know—always _needed_ to know—how Ferdinand planned to get to the stables and how he planned to get back. Now, that was just one of many habits he needed to break, unless there was a genuine reason for him to know.

Ferdinand paused at the door as if he meant to say something else. Instead his face fell, and he began his walk.

Hubert did watch him leave out the window, craned his neck so he could see his husband vanish out across the bright emerald leaves and jeweled flowers of their garden. High summer had truly come to Enbarr, and Hubert worried about the heat.

“...Papa?”

He turned to face the small voice behind him.

Lysette stood at the entryway, her horsey held by one hoof in her hand as she half-hid behind the wall.

“Lysette,” he said quietly, coming over to her with his arms carefully resting at his sides. “You should still be in bed.”

“I heard you talking,” she said, voice small.

“Your father is leaving for a ride,” Hubert answered, bending down to his knees and instantly regretting it. “He will be back by lunchtime.”

As she had many times through the last month, she looked at him with wide, skeptical eyes.

Hubert couldn’t blame her for that.

“Come along,” he said, straightening out his creaking knees and blinking away the rush to his head, “let's get you back to bed.”

“I don’t _want_ to go back to bed,” she said. “I’ve _been_ in bed.” She held her plush horse close and took a step back from him when he reached for her. “Can we sit in your chair?”

Hubert paused, then smiled. “Of course.”

They made for the living room, where Hubert found Ferdinand’s large, plush chair and lowered himself into it. Lysette grabbed at his shirt and climbed into his lap, toy horse held between them as she rested her head on his chest.

“Papa,” she said, moving two soft hooves back and forth. “Are you sad?”

“What makes you say that?”

“You’ve been crying a lot.” Her voice sounded smaller than she was. “People cry when they’re sad.”

He took a breath, ran his hand soothingly down her back. The children’s trust in him was shaken, no matter how much Ferdinand tried to hide it. Delaney walked on eggshells, and Alistair had asked him if he could warn them the next time he was going to be ill.

“I am sad,” he admitted.

“Why?” she asked.

A thousand things rose to the surface, and it was all he could do to keep them at bay. She didn’t know every wretched thing he had done or believed himself to be.

“I nearly hurt your father very badly when he and I were both young.” He struggled to find the right words and they made his throat hurt. “We did not get along very well then.”

“Oh,” she said, audibly attempting to patch together this new understanding of her fathers’ relationship, “but you’re married now.”

“We are,” he confirmed, and kissed the top of her head.

She squirmed. “Your beard is _scratchy_.”

He chuckled, and it was the closest thing to real mirth he’d felt in a while. “I could possibly deign to do something about that.”

“I wish you weren’t sad,” she mumbled into his shirt.

“I’m sure your father wishes the same.” Hubert struggled to imagine what he ever thought he would have done without this.

He stayed in place for some time, just breathed with the weight of her on his chest and wondered how he could have beared to let any one of them go.

Eventually, her breathing slowed and he needed to carefully shift her weight as he sat up, propping her head up with his hand as he had when she was an infant. Though they’d gotten all of the children young, she had by far been the youngest and smallest.

He slowly took her upstairs to her room as she sleepily clung to him. She stirred slightly when he tucked her in, but by the time he placed her toy in her arms and kissed her forehead, she was asleep again.

He let the door close very softly behind him.

Absently, he ran his palm over his face, evaluating the uneven edges of his beard. Perhaps it had gotten a little out of hand.

He retreated to the bathroom and the basin, where he rinsed and applied soap to the area around his mouth.

Contrary to popular belief and a few unflattering limericks, a straight razor had never been his weapon of choice. He still made quick work of his beard, carefully scraping off the layer of hair at his jaw, neck, and over his lips. It wasn’t even as sharp as it should have been, and the result left his face feeling somewhat red and inflamed—but clean shaven.

There was a clatter from downstairs just as Hubert washed away the last of the soap. He heard Ferdinand call out hesitantly into the house, and decided to go intercept him before he woke Lysette.

When he came downstairs, Ferdinand looked at him with wide-eyed recognition, and a hint of relief, as if glad to see that Hubert hadn’t fled while he was gone.

He supposed Ferdinand would have that fear for a while, and that brought its own shame with it.

As Ferdinand watched him, his face broke into a smile. “You shaved.”

“I suppose it was beginning to bother me a little.” Hubert tentatively ran his cool fingertips over the irritated skin. “Did you not appreciate the beard?”

Ferdinand stepped into him and pressed their chests together. “I always think my husband is handsome.”

Hubert felt his smile split his lips, then instinctively ran his hand up to the line of Ferdinand’s hair. Even that small gesture caused Ferdinand’s amber eyes to shine.

“You seem well today,” Ferdinand said, though Hubert saw his face fall and heard the tentative undercurrent there, the subtext under the word _well_. The last time Hubert had seemed fine, there was something wretched stirring beneath the surface.

Hubert ran his hand down Ferdinand’s hair, and despite the smell of dust and hay clinging to him, Hubert was hit with the quiet pleasure of realizing Ferdinand hadn’t yet taken his hair out of its braid.

His hand hovered at the end, toying with the tie there. “May I?”

Looking up at him, Ferdinand beamed, then let his forehead fall into Hubert’s shoulder “Of course.”

Hubert made quick work of the braid, first untying the leather band and then running his fingers through each strand. When he was done, he started at Ferdinand’s scalp and spread his fingers out, careful not to catch his knuckles on any knots or tears as he worked air and life back into it.

Next to him, Ferdinand tilted his head to kiss the side of Hubert’s lip. “This seems sudden.”

“I suppose I’m feeling more myself today,” Hubert admitted, knowing full well he could just as easily become a stranger again the following day.

“Welcome back,” Ferdinand whispered, then, more quietly: “I’ll have no less than another forty years after the scare you gave me.”

“I said that you would have whatever you asked for,” Hubert muttered back before kissing him again.

When they went upstairs to fetch Lysette for lunch, Hubert kept his hand on Ferdinand’s back, his fingers twined in long locks, and his heart firmly on the ground.


End file.
